D 514 
.K6 
Copy 1 



tacj 



a- 



V 



I 



i 



i 



1 






THE AUSTRO-GERMAN 
HYPOCRISY 



AND 



The Russian Orthodox 
Greek Catholic Church 



BY 

REVEREND PETER KOHANIK 

Canon 0/ S(. Nicholas' Russian 
Cathedral 




Published by the Russian Orthodox Catholic Mutual Aid 
Society of the United Stales of America 



NEW YORK CITY 
1915 



n 



i 



n 






I 

r 
I 

I 



n 



hi 



j^^B^S^grg^^ ^ nSsaaisir^^^ rg iaaie!^; 






THE AUSTRO-GERMAN 
HYPOCRISY 



AND 



The Russian Orthodox 
Greek Catholic Church 



BY 

REVEREND PETER KOHAMK 

H 

Canon of St. Nicholas' Russian 
Cathedral 




Published by the Russian Orthodox Catholic Mutual Aid 
Society of the United States of America 



NEW YORK CITY 
1915 






Transferred from 
Librarian's Off( ce . 

JHN 2 f8J5 



The Austro-German Hypocrisy 

AND 

The Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic 

Church. 



"Thou hypocrite! cast out first the beam 
out of thine own eye and then shalt thou 
see clearly to pull out the mote that jLig in 
thy brother's eye" (Luke vi, 42). 



According to the statements of "Alsation" in the 
"New York Evening Telegram," January 14, 1915, 
there is now a German clique in New York circulating 
printed leaflets from Berlin and Bremen, marked 
"Widest circulation requested" and "Kindly circulate 
as much as possible," which are filled with misstatements 
as well as deliberate falsehoods. 

The main purpose of these pamphlets and many 
Austro-German editorials, especially in the German 
"Staats-Zeitung," is to blame the present uncivilized 
European war on England and Russia in order to gain 
American sympathy. England's interests, as we know, 
are well taken care of against all kinds of Teutonic ac- 
cusations, by her powerful American sympathizers, but 
little is heard in Russia's defense. 

In view of the ignorant and unfounded attacks 
which have been made upon the Russian Greek Catho- 

3 



lie Church and the calumnies which have been hurled 
at Russia by the Pro-German agitators in this country, 
it is my purpose to make a few statements in defense of 
Russia and the Russian Church. 

A few months since, Mr. Herman Ridder, of the 
"New York Staats-Zeitung," with the aid of the "Ger- 
man American Literary Defense Committee," reprint- 
ed in pamphlet form his editorials from the "Staats- 
Zeitung" (No. 209-247, Sept.-Oct., 1914) concerning 
Russia and the Russian Church in North America. 

The title of the pamphlet is "The Great Con- 
spiracy,"* and is distributed free of charge throughout 
the United States. It is apparent to every broad- 
minded and sensible person who really knows Russia 
and her religion, that Herr Ridder and his Austrian as- 
sociate-instigators, A. Szarsky and A. Konta, prepared 
this pamphlet especially to incite an active American 
hostility to Russia. In their persistent effort to awaken 
racial and religious animosities for the benefit of the 
Teutons, Herr Ridder and Co. attempt to establish the 
following propositions in the "Great Conspiracy"; 

1. That "two European countries — England and 
Russia — committed a monstrous crime and the most 
terrible catastrophe on hundreds of millions of people 
by deliberately and wantonly waging a war of conquest, 
unique in the history of the world." 

2. That "Russia, the land of gloomy despotism and 
barbarism, with Czar Nicholas II — head of the Rus- 
sian Church, has declared a holy war on civilized Chris- 
tian nations"; 

3. That "the Russian Orthodox Church in North 
America and its clergy, ever since the sale of Alaska 



* This article originally appeared in "The New York Times," March 16, 
1913, under the title, "Russia's Conspiracy Against Americanizing Aliens." 



to the United States (Oct. 18, 1867), were political 
agents of the Russian Government; that their work in 
America is a deliberate and elaborately organized and 
financed campaign, not only for the conversion of the 
Slavic people to the Russian Orthodox Church, but, 
what is far more serious, for preventing them from 
becoming Americanized and loyal to the United States"; 

4. That "the Russian Orthodox Church in North 
America, having no regular registered church member- 
ship, with Russian money poured out like water for 
the great orthodox cause, is attempting to win the 
Ruthenians (Russians from Austria, in forced religious 
union with the Roman Church since 1649) over to the 
Orthodox faith of Russia by the simple method of assur- 
ing them that their faith was identical with Russian 
Orthodoxy"; 

5. That "the Ruthenians and all the true adherents 
of the Greek Catholic Ruthenian Church in Russia 
must pay with bitterest persecution and also with life 
itself for their loyalty." 

II 

The Real Conspiracy of The Germans. 

Either ignorance or malicious falsehood lurks in 
every word of the "Great Conspiracy." It is impossible, 
however, in a brief space, to lay before the American 
public the real state of affairs in Russia and the sources 
of her power, which, could it be done, would disclose 
the loftiness and true nobility of the Russian national 
genius, and the deep-stored and spiritual religious treas- 
ury of the Russian people, and would immediately re- 
fute the puerile assertions of the Austro- German Rus- 
sophobs that Russia is a barbarous, despotic country — 
a notion which, I fear, has received too much circula- 

5 



lion and even some acceptance among American news- 
paper readers. Notwithstanding the difficulty of re- 
moving this prejudice, I know that silence ceases to be 
golden in the face of so much cleverly directed denuncia- 
tion and misstatement circulated; and it has seemed 
proper that a word of protest should be issued against 
the falsehoods of these detractors. 

Ought Herr Ridder and his Austrian associates, 
throw stones at Russia and the Russian Orthodox 
Church, when they themselves are not "without sin"? 
I shall confine myself to facts. They hypocritically ac- 
cuse Russia of an existing "conspiracy" against the 
United States, when their own countrymen are guilty 
of a real and shameful "passport conspiracy," the object 
of which is to perpetrate a fraud on the United States by 
buying American citizenship papers at $20 each and 
passports at an additional $20 for German reservists 
to enable them to return to Germany under the pro- 
tection of the American flag. Those interested to know 
the details of the matter, should look up the "New York 
Times" of Jan. 3, 1915, which proves the "Passport 
Plot" and even gives the names of the four Germans 
arrested in New York Harbor with fraudulent pass- 
ports. 

It is true then that the Teutons not onl}~ in Russia, 
but, as the "Literary Digest" of January 9th, 191.5, 
puts it, under the Special German Law of July 22, 1913, 
may become American (and other) citizens without 
sacrificing their German citizenship and allegiance. 

That is why Herr Ridder, the German war lord in 
America and editor of the "New York Staats-Zeitung," 
calls upon all Teutons in the United States "to orga- 
nize against the drift of public opinion in America to- 
ward Germany, stating at the same time that "there have 
been no traitors to the German cause either among the 

6 



66,000,000 Germans in the European 'Fatherland' or 
their descendants in the United States." 

Oh, ye hypocrites! correct your own faults before 
criticizing others. Reverse your mental sight and be 
blind to the faults of others and quick to see your own 
failings. 

Ill 

German Kaiser — The Real Author of The 
Present Horrible European War. 

Let us now examine the very contents of "The Great 
Conspiracy." It is absurd to blame Russia and its 
Emperor for having declared a "Holy War" on civilized 
Christian nations. 

Allow me to recite some facts touching on and ap- 
pertaining to this false accusation. 

The Hon. J. M. Beck, former Assistant Attorney- 
General of the United States, who, as he states himself, 
has "a feeling of deep affection for the German people 
and an equal admiration for their ideals and matchless 
progress," presented in the "New York Sunday Times," 
October 25, 1914, in an article entitled, "In the Supreme 
Court of Civilization," his own views concerning the 
same question of responsibility for the present European 
conflict, but he justly puts the whole blame for the war 
not on Russia but on Germany. 

Presenting the case, Mr. Beck asks: "If the evi- 
dence submitted by the official 'White,' 'Orange' and 
'Gray' books of the warring nations were analyzed as a 
lawyer analyzes the evidence in his cases, who would be 
found responsible for the European War?" 

His answer to this is: "Germany and Austria in a 
time of profound peace, secretly concerted to impose 

7 



their will upon Europe and upon Serbia in a matter af- 
fecting the balance of power in Europe. 

''Austria having mobilized its army, Russia was rea- 
sonably justified in mobilizing its forces. Such act of 
mobilization was the right of any sovereign state, and 
as the Russian armies did not cross the border or take 
any aggressive action, no other nation had any just right 
to complain, each having the same right to make similar 
preparations. 

"Germany, in abruptly declaring war against Rus- 
sia for failure to demobilize when other Powers had 
offered to make any reasonable concession and peace 
parleys were still in progress, precipitated the war." 

If we will acquaint ourself with the "New York 
World's" article, Dec. 21, 1914, concerning Dr. Newell 
Dwight Hillis' sermon on the war, delivered by him on 
December 20, 1914, before a large gathering of Ger- 
mans in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, it will be evident 
to us that the Kaiser and no other person was respon- 
sible for the present war. 

"Isn't it ridiculous," declared Dr. Hillis, "that Em- 
peror Wilhelm — author of this horrible war — has been 
saying that God is on his side. God and he have been 
partners if you accept his statements." 

Another eminent minister of New York, the Rev. 
Dr. C. E. Jefferson, in his pamphlet under the title of 
"The Cause of the War," p. 10, reminds us that "at the 
very beginning of the war, the Russian Secretary of 
Foreign Affairs, Mr. Sazonof, declared that it was a 
question of life or death for Russia whether Austria 
should be allowed to go on and crush Serbia under her 
heel. Russia has a double motive for fighting. She is 
fighting for herself and also for others. She is fight- 
ing for the rights of a little country (as England for 
the rights of little Belgium) which, when it had been 
bled white by two awful wars, was suddenly attacked 



by an empire fifteen times its size. You cannot wonder 
then that all these peoples are righting. They fight not 
because they are barbarians nor because they love war, 
but because they have been swept into war by forces 
which they were powerless to resist. Where shall we 
look for the culprit? Hardly in Russia. 

"Study the face of Nicholas II (Czar of Russia). 
It is not the face of a warrior. It is the face, rather, 
of an artist or a poet. Remember that it was he who, 
impressed by the arguments of Jean de Bloch, called the 
first Hague Conference, some fifteen years ago,* hoping 
that the nations might agree on a reduction in arma- 
ments. 

"Read his telegram to his cousin, the King of Eng- 
land, in which he declared that he had done everything 
in his power to avert the war. Surely this is not a man 
who wanted to deluge Europe in blood, or who is to 
be held responsible for what is going on (in Europe)." 

The biased critic will sneer at this, of course, and 
say there was a motive for him in proposing the uni- 
versal peace, but it was ever thus — one can't please 
everybody. 

IV 

Russia's Culture. 

Is Russia in reality a "land of gloomy despotism and 
barbarism," as the Austro-German hypocrites of New 
York declared her to be? 



* The Hague Tribunal was summoned by the present Russian Czar, to 
whom the world owes an unpayable debt. He desired the powers to "devise, 
if possible, a means to put an end to the incessant armaments, and to seek 
a means of warding off the calamities threatening the whole world." 
Twenty-six nations responded to his first call; to his second call no less 
than forty-four attended. May it be his privilege soon to call the third 
congress and thus, perhaps, perform the greatest service ever permitted to 
man. We have abolished slavery from civilized countries, the owning of 
man by man. The next great step which the world should take is to 
abolish war, the killing of man by man." — (Andrew Carnegie, in "War 
Abolished— Peace Enthroned," 1915* New York, N. Y.) 





"It is a mistake for the Austro-Germans, or any 
other people, to imagine," as we are told by j\Jr. Hya- 
cinthe Ringrose (an eminent attorney of New York 
City) in his excellent pamphlet, "Why is America Neu- 
tral?", "that they have a monopoly of culture, civiliza- 
tion or any other special advantage enjoyed by us poor 
humans. Every nation can justly boast of a galaxy of 
good, wise and talented men and women. It is a great 
mistake for the Germans to attempt to inject their par- 
ticular brand of 'culture' into the Belgians by howitzers, 
or attempt to drop it in bomb capsules from Zeppelins 
upon the French, who are as fully cultured as any other 
race in Europe. A nation represented by Pushkin, Tur- 
genejf and Tolstoy in literature; by Kramskoy, Verest- 
chagin and Glinka in art; and by Metchnikoff, Pavloff 
and Mendel eeff in science, can a ford to have its culture 
compared with that of any other modern community. 
Ideals count for more than ideas in a nation's develop- 
ment. The ideals of Russia are leading her slowly but 
surely to the highest plane of civilized culture. There 
are various forms of culture, and some of them are not 
signs of civilization. 

"The burglar who pursues his trade scientifically, 
and the murderer who studies chemistry so as to speedily 
dispose of his victim, are both men of culture, but such 
culture is not needed in Russia or anywhere else. A 
book like that of 'The Next War' by General von 
Bernhardi would not be accepted in Russia as proof of 
its author's 'culture' ; it would rather prove to the Rus- 
sians that General von Bernhardi is a human blood- 
hound. In attacking Russians for their lack of culture 
the Germans say nothing of the unspeakable Turk, who 
has long been Germany's secret and underhand ally. 
Upon what theory of culture or civilization can Ger- 
many justify its dragging of the 'Sick Man of Europe' 

10 



into this conflict? The whole record of Germany's deal- 
ings and alliance with Turkey in the present world 
crisis has been criminal, underhand" and uncivilized. 

V 

Our Lord Jesus Christ is The One True Head of 
The Russian Orthodox Church. 

Another strange assertion of the Austro- German- 
springing either from gross ignorance or utter disregard 
of the truth — is that the Russian Emperor is the head 
of the Russian Orthodox Church. 

A lay head of the Church! What a groundless ac- 
cusation, based on complete ignorance of the real state 
of things ! Whoever uses this expression without giving 
it full and thorough consideration and understanding, is 
using it as a weapon against the spiritual welfare of 
the Orthodox Church. 

"It would be a great mistake to call the Emperor 
of Russia the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. 
He makes no such claim, and Russian Orthodoxy recog- 
nizes only one head of the Church, our Lord, and only 
infallible authority speaking in his name, the Seven 
First Ecumenical Councils. The Emperor may be the 
autocratic master of the Church; he is not the head of it. 
His authority is from the outside only. In questions 
of dogma he has no authority at all. He is regarded 
as the temporal defender and guardian of the church; 
his authority, and consequently the authority of the State, 
concerns the administration of the Church solely, and 
even here his power is limited by tradition, canon laws 
and the ecumenical character of the Church." (The Rus- 
sian Church, by Hon. M. Baring, New York, p. 235.) 

Anyone who is familiar with the history of the Rus- 
sian Church and acquainted with her doctrines not from 

11 



hearsy, but from the Church's symbolical books, will 
need no proof to the above assertions of Mr. Baring. 
Indeed, the Russian Church knows of no such thing as 
"the Czar being the Head of the Russian Church," but 
knows, on the contrary, perfectly well that the Russian 
Church is ruled by an invisible Head, which is Jesus 
Christ, and that the organ through which He manifests 
His will is the Ecumenical Council or Synod of Bishops. 

The Russian Emperor is merely, as a Christian sov- 
ereign, the supreme protector and guardian of the dog- 
mas of the Orthodox faith, keeper of Orthodoxy and 
every decency in the Church (Vol. I, Sec. 42, Civil Code 
of the Russian Empire). In this sense the document 
of the Succession to the throne (Apr. 5, 1797, N-17910) 
calls the Emperor the Head of the Church. 

In this legislative act the above expression has a 
meaning totally different from the one ascribed to it 
by all assailants of the Russian Church. 

When, after many tribulations and sufferings, the 
Russian people, by common agreement (in 1613) chose 
Michael Romanoff for their hereditary monarch (such 
is the noble origin of the imperial power in Russia) , they 
invested him with all the rights they possessed them- 
selves. 

By force of this election, the Monarch became the 
head of the people in Church matters, as in the matters 
of civic government. 

The head of the people in Church matters and, in 
this sense, the head of the local Church, but in this sense 
alone. 

The people did not hand over and could not hand 
over to their monarch rights in matters and conscience, 
dogmatic teaching and general discipline they did not 
possess themselves. 

The people entrusted the Emperor of their choice 

12 



and his descendants with the right, or rather duty to 
see that the decisions of their pastors and councils should 
be carried out ; with the right to defend the faith against 
all alien assaidts and violence. 

Never did a Russian Emperor consider himself, 
neither was he ever considered by any sensible Christian 
the head of the Russian Church in the sense that Roman 
Catholics consider the Roman Pope the head of theirs. 

Never throughout the course of Russian history do 
we find a single example of a Russian Sovereign mak- 
ing an attempt to change anything either in the doctrines 
of the Church or in her ritual, or in her Sacraments. 
On the contrary, the Russian Emperors have always 
professed only what has been sanctioned by the Catholic 
Orthodox Church in her councils. 

The Russian Emperor only assists the Church in 
matters of her administration, but (not being ordained 
to the ministry) does not rule her. Every year he 
humbly confesses his infirmities before a simple priest 
of the Church and accepts the holy Eucharist from him 
as all other lay members of the Church, which would be 
an absurd impossibility were he really the head of the 
Church. 

Why do we never hear anybody speak, especially 
among Russians, about the Austrian Emperor as the 
head of the Catholic Church in Austria? In reality he 
possesses exactly the same power and the same rights in 
Roman Catholic and Uniate Churches of Austria as the 
Russian Emperor in the Orthodox Church of his coun- 
try. 

We all know that the Austrian Emperor not only 
approves and signs all documents pertaining to Church 
affairs, but also appoints Bishops to different episcopal 
sees and elects the deans and abbots. Without his sanc- 
tion and knowledge no "bull" or "breve" of the Roman 

13 



Pope is allowed to be proclaimed or published for the 
Austrian Roman Catholics. From this point of view 
the Russian Emperor should also be called the head of 
the Roman Catholic Church in Russia, because he ap- 
points Bishops for this Church. Besides, it is historically 
certified that even Pope Gregory VII, the infallible 
head of the Roman Church, was compelled to seek the 
consent of the German Emperor, Henry IV, before 
being vested with the papal dignity and office. 

VI 

Government or The Russian Church. 

The Russian Church was consecutively governed by 
three kinds of church government : the Metropolitan ( up 
to 1589), the Patriarchal (from 1589), and the present 
Synodal (from 1721). 

The collective Government of the Russian Church, 
under the title of the "Spiritual Collegium," afterwards 
changed to the Holy Synod, was confirmed in 1721, by 
an edict of Peter the Great. 

The Patriarchal form of Church government was 
changed to the Synodal form for the following reasons : 

1. "That the truth can be discerned much better by 
several people than by one : 'what one cannot grasp, an- 
other will * * * so that a doubtful matter will be 
more clearly and rapidly explained, and it will not be 
difficult to see what direction should be taken' ; 

2. "That the determinations and decisions of the col- 
lective authority have more weight and force, and will, 
therefore, be more rapidly obeyed than the decision of 
a single person; 

3. "That when the Church power is centered in one 
person it can easily be mistaken for regal power." 

14 



The dignity of the Patriarch of the Russian Church 
was not abolished by the authority of the Emperors, but 
by the Eastern Patriarchs, who had founded the Russian 
Patriarchate. 

This fact alone proves sufficiently that, as the head 
of the Church, the Emperor cannot be anything but the 
Head of the people in Church matters, and most as- 
suredly as soon as this interpretation is accepted, all the 
accusations founded on the double interpretation will 
come to nothing. 

In expressing their consent to the founding of a synod 
in Russia, the Eastern Patriarchs conferred on it an 
authority equal to the Patriarchal. Jeremiah, the Pa- 
triarch of Constantinople, wrote to the Russian Holy 
Synod: "By the grace and power of the Holy, Lifegiv- 
ing and Supreme Spirit, our authority legalizes, con- 
firms and proclaims the newly-founded Synod in the 
Great Kingdom of Russia. * * * It is and accord- 
ingly is given the name of our brother in Christ, the 
Holy and Sacred Synod, and it has the power of doing 
and accomplishing, like unto the four Apostolic and 
Sacred Patriarchal Sees." 

The Synodal Rule of the Church was foimded by 
the Apostles themselves, who examined and decided the 
most important questions of faith and Church discipline 
collectively (The Acts 6-15). 

According to Apostolic rules also, the supreme 
power of the Church must not belong even to the first 
amongst the bishops (still less to a King or Emperor 
who is a lay member), but to a council of Bishops (34 
and 37 Apostolic Rules) . 

The Holy Synod of Bishops of the Russian Ortho- 
dox Church, in its organization and competence, has 
all the distinction of a strictly canonical institution. In 
accordance with Church rules concerning councils, its 

15 



members as well as those present must all be bishops. 
At the head of the Holy Synod stands the leading Met- 
ropolitan Bishop, but in conformity to the 34th Apos- 
tolic rule, he is only the first among equals in the power, 
standing as the presiding officer. 

The Holy Synod (composed of the Metropolitans of 
Petrograd, Moscow and Kieff, the Exarch of the Cau- 
casus, the Archbishop of Finland, and three or four 
other Archbishops or Bishops, elected semi-annually 
from different dioceses by the Synod itself) is the high- 
est Church government in Russia, and not the Emperor. 
Certainly, there exists a complete, mutual interaction 
between the Church and the Imperial Government. By 
its moral influence, the Russian Church constantly works 
to uphold in society the proper respect and obedience 
toward lawful power and its institutions ; and the impe- 
rial power, on the other hand, preserves the sanctity of 
the Orthodox faith, the order of the Church, its customs 
and regulations; cares for the religious education of the 
people, conserves the immunity of Church property, 
and sees to the material support of the Church and 
clergy. 

VII 

The Essence of the Russian Orthodox Church's 

Work in America is Not Political but Purely 

Spiritual. 

The Teutonic hypocrites further assert that the 
Russian Orthodox Church in America is a political 
agency of the Russian Government, and that this church 
by its "hidden" religious work among the Slavic 
nationalities in America, prevents them from becoming 
loyal citizens of the United States. 

What a mean and groundless accusation ! All Rus- 
sian Orthodox Christians as also all our American 

16 



friends, acquainted with the true missionary work of the 
Russian Church in North America know that the very- 
essence of our mission here is not political, but purely 
spiritual, which is to bring the light of the true Orthodox 
faith in Jesus Christ to various Slavs, who formerly 
belonged to the Eastern Orthodox Church, but were 
forced a few centuries ago into the so-called UN I A with 
the Roman Church, the Jesuit fathers planning the 
whole thing in such a way, that the Uniats were sure 
to turn Roman Catholic sooner or later. 

To achieve her high and sacred object, the Russian 
Orthodox Mission in America employs only lofty and 
purely spiritual means. Faith is a thing of the inner 
man; a man holds this or that faith because he feels 
attracted toward it in his heart. Consequently, in order 
that man may exchange one faith for another, he must 
be brought into a spiritual attitude which will make him 
indifferent toward his former faith, but fervently eager 
toward the new. 

To achieve this, it is necessary to act directly upon 
the man's inner nature, in order that within him, in his 
own soul, there should begin a warfare against his own 
sinful will, and he should be brought thereby to realize 
his own self-deception, his own errors; so that he may 
accept the truth which is offered him not under the 
pressure of any external means and authority, but di- 
rectly from inner necessity. 

It follows that the righteous personal lives of mis- 
sionaries, that the tears they shed for the kindness of 
men's hearts, their charity and exhortations, their argu- 
ments and humble preaching, their gentleness and loving 
kindness are the means the Orthodox Mission invariably 
employ in America and elsewhere for the conversion of 
Slavic and other peoples to its faith. Having no politi- 
cal objects, the Russian Orthodox Mission did not in 

17 



the past, and does not now strive to acquire or influence 
in political affairs. It does not look on the propagation 
of Orthodoxy as a means for the subjugation of Slavic 
or other nations, under the power of the Russian Gov- 
ernment. 

All this is the business of the State and its diplomatic 
missions — not the Church and its missionaries. 

This fact was openly referred to by one of the fore- 
most Russian missionary Bishops, the Right Reverend 
Nicholas, late of North America and Alaska, now Arch- 
bishop of Warsaw, in his farewell message to the Hon. 
William McKinley, then President of the United 
States: "Our Church never meddles with politics, and 
our Clergy never, either at home or anywhere else, have 
busied themselves with any intrigues of this descrip- 
tion. It would be wrong to confound us with the 
Jesuits. Our Church allows us only to intercede for 
the oppressed or those that suffer innocently — as I have 
some times done before you — but it never allows us to 
incite citizens to revolt and treason." 

The Russian Orthodox Missions throughout the 
wide world are entirely unaffected by political ten- 
dencies. Take, for example, the Russian Mission in 
Japan. In that country the late Right Reverend Arch- 
bishop Nicholas of Tokio built up, during the thirty 
years of his missionary work, a national Orthodox 
Church composed of 35,000 Japanese Christians. What 
enabled the Archbishop Nicholas to accomplish, single- 
handed, this great missionary labor? Only the fact 
that he always preached pure Christianity; striving to 
make Christians of the Japanese converts, in their own 
language and spirit, mixing into his work no political 
thoughts. The same can be said of the Russian Mis- 
sion in North America. Thousands of laymen and 
clergymen of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 

18 



United States are true and enthusiastic citizens of the 
Union, all the younger generation, strictly attending 
the public and high schools, speak the English language 
more fluently than their native tongue. Throughout 
the hundred years of our Church's history in the United 
States, not a single Russian person ever was or could 
be accused of a political crime like the German falsifi- 
cation of citizenship papers and passports (see the 
"New York Times," Jan. 3, 1915). 

Furthermore, whil£ the Ruthenian-Uniat Church # 
of our Austro-German accusers, "no matter where lo- 
cated, clings to the old Slavonic language, the Russian 
Church adopts the language of the country (as we 
have seen in the case of Japan) in which it is 
located, which means that eventually it will adopt the 
English language for its services in America. Already 
it has (from 1906) a complete English edition of its 
Service Book ('Service Book of the Holy Orthodox- 
Catholic Apostolic Greco-Russian Church,' compiled, 
translated and arranged from the old Slavonic Service, 
by Isabel Florence Hapgood, New York, Houghton 
Mifflin & Co.). 

"Will the American Uniats (Ruthenians) of the 
future be permitted to have their services, including 
their masses, in English? The children of foreign- 
speaking parents quickly forget their mother tongue 
in America. Seldom do we find the second generation 
of such children capable of fluently speaking and under- 
standing the language of their grandparents, and when 
they of Ruthenian ancestry cease to understand the old 
Slavonic ritual, will they be obliged to go to the Latin 
Church, or lose their chances of heaven by ex-commum- 
cation, or will Papal authority be given them to con- 
duct their ritual in English? 

"Should such authority not be given, and it seems 

19 



likely that it will not, will they prefer the Latin to the 
Russian Church, the Church of their forefathers, in 
which the time-tested and sacred Greek liturgy of the 
early Christian centuries has been and is kept in its 
purity in substance if not in language, and where this 
beautiful liturgy will be sung in the English language, 
permitting all English-speaking people to understand 
and join?" ("The Ruthenians and Their Church," by 
Hon. A. E. Oberlander, Gettysburg, 1912). 

VIII 

Characteristic Features of The Roman Catholic 

Church. 

Consider, on the other hand, the aims and purposes 
of the Roman Catholic faith of our hypocritical accus- 
ers in this matter. The characteristic feature of the 
activity of the Roman Pontiffs as early as the seventh 
and eighth centuries, was the tendency toward supre- 
macy and universal dominion. Ever since that time, 
therefore, Roman Catholic nations became almost ex- 
clusively instruments for the propagation of the Papal 
power. Not Christian love, but direct violence was 
considered the best means for attaining their object, 
and it was not thought possible to accomplish it without 
the assistance of the royal power. 

Latin missionaries were by no means averse to 
violent methods; the sword with them frequently took 
the place of Christian love, and the missionaries 
preached not so much Christ as the Pope. Religious 
wars, undertaken for the purpose of spreading Chris- 
tianity and the Papal power, more common and habitual 
in the West. Converting to Christianity at that time 
meant subjugating, Latinizing and even on occasion, 
annihilating the nationality of a heathen people — 
"heathen" meaning "enemy." 



Precisely such was the character of Charlemagne's 
wars against the Saxons. It was with the same object 
that crusades were undertaken against the Mohamme- 
dans in the twelfth and the following centuries. 

In the Thirteenth century religious wars were con- 
ducted with the blessing of Popes, against the heretical 
Albigenses (1206-1228), and later against the Wal- 
denses. The Thirty Years' War (between the Protes- 
tant and Roman Catholic leagues in Germany, later in- 
volving other countries. It began with the Bohemian 
war, 1618, and ended with the Peace of Westphalia, 
1648) owed its beginning, its long duration and it re- 
ligious character to the manipulations of Jesuit papal 
agents. 

The religious war against the Huguenots in France 
(seventeenth century) was also their handiwork (see 
Prof. N. Krasnoseltzef's "Western Missions," Kazan, 
1872). 

From the year 1569, with the assistance of the 
Kings of Poland, the Papists began a general religious 
persecution of the Orthodox people in Western Russia 
and Austrian Galicia. Not being able to convert the 
Russian Orthodox Christians to Roman Catholicism by 
force, the Jesuits initiated the method of the religious 
Unia or of mutual concessions, in order to facilitate 
for the Russian people the transition to Romanism, 
adapting the latter to the ideas, the tastes and the dog- 
mas of the people, concealing at first the real purpose 
of their Unia. 

IX 

Number of Communicants of The Eastern Ortho- 
dox Greek Catholic Church. 

The Austro-Germans further assert that the Russian 
Orthodox Mission in America has no registered Church 

21 



communicants, that for its "hidden" work here money 
is pouring like water from the Russian Government; 
that it is attempting to win the Little Russians (now 
called by the Romanists "Ruthenians" ) of Austria- 
Hungary over to the Orthodox faith of Russia by all 
means at its command, fair or unfair. 

It is commonly supposed, that if men, especially 
such educated men as Hen* Ridder and his Austrian 
associates, intend to make a public statement concern- 
ing some subject, they should thoroughly acquaint 
themselves with this subject first and then pronounce 
their judgment. 

With our Teutonic assailants it is altogether dif- 
ferent; they speak without any thorough knowledge 
and arrive at conclusions, having no foundation what- 
ever. 

In the Christian Herald Almanac for 1915, p. 43, 
the Russian Orthodox Church showed publicly and 
plainly that her Mission in America has a regularly 
registered membership of communicants. The follow- 
ing figures will give a fair idea of her registration: 

Russians from Russia ----- 50,000 

Russians from Austria-Galicia - - 20,000 

Russians from Austria-Hungary - - 14,000 

Russians from Austria Bukowina - 5,000 

Creoles in Alaska 1,500 

Aleuts in Alaska ------ 1,500 

Indians in Alaska ------- 1,000 

Eskimos in Alaska ------ 800 

Americans - - - - 254 

Persians --------- 77 

Japanese --------- 28 

1 . 

Total - - - 7 94,159 

22 



The membership of the whole Eastern Orthodox 
Greek Catholic Church throughout the world is esti- 
mated at over 137 millions. 

In Russia: Russians ----- 80,000,000 

Other nationalities - 28,000,000 

Servians: In Servia ----- 2,300,000 

Servians: In Austria - - - - 3,500,000 

Servians: In Macedonia - - - 400,000 

Servians: In Montenegro - - 225,000 

Bulgarians: In Bulgaria - - - 3,500,000 

Bulgarians: In Macedonia - - 1,200,000 

Bulgarians: In Tracia - - - - 600,000 

Roumanians: In Roumania - - 3,000,000 
Roumanians: In Austria- 

Bukowina ------- 2,300,000 

Roumanians: In Russia - - - 1,000,000 

Roumanians: In Macedonia - - 300,000 

Roumanians: In Bulgaria - - 100,000 
Greeks : in Greece ----- v 2,250,000 

Greeks and other nationalities in 

Turkey -------- 8,000,000 

Syrians --------- 500,000 

Japanese in Japan ----- 35,000 

Syro-Chaldeans ------ 20,000 

Chinese in China ----- 4,000 

Total -------- 137,234,000 

X 

Return to Orthodoxy of The Atjstro-Russians in 

America. 

It is perfectly true that the Russian Orthodox Mis- 
sion in America is attempting to win the Russians of 
Austria-Hungary to her Orthodox faith, but only by 
proper, lawful and peaceful Christian means. 

23 



This holy work was started in the United States 
some twenty-four years ago by Russian "Uniats," de- 
scendants of Russians from Austrian Galicia and Hun- 
gary, who originally were Orthodox and at one with 
the Russian Orthodox Church, but since 1596 were 
driven by years of Roman Catholic oppression and 
scheming into submission to the Pope of Rome, though 
preserving features of their own faith. In 1891 a con- 
gregation was established in the city of Minneapolis, 
Minn., under the leadership of their faithful pastor, the 
late Very Rev. Archpriest Alexis G. Towt, from whom 
they first learned that all their forefathers were of 
the Orthodox faith. 

The main cause of this movement was excellently 
described by Father Towt (see the "American Ortho- 
dox Messenger," N-20, 1889) in the following words: 

"I was an Uniat when I came to America. Having 
been a professor of Church Law, I knew that here in 
America as an Uniat priest I was to obey the Roman 
Catholic Bishop of the particular diocese, in which I 
happened to work. The Unia demands this, as well as 
the various Papal Bulls, Brevets and Decretalias, as 
there was no Uniat Bishop in this country. 

"Moreover, in my credential s^*ky litters accredi- 
tee — the following instruction was clearly given: 'Di- 
lectio tua debet semet personalites coram Prassule istius 
Dioceseos presentare, in cuius territorio habetur locus 
destinationis suae.' The place of my appointment was 
Minneapolis, Minn., in the province of Archbishop Ire- 
land. As an obedient Uniat I complied with the orders 
of my Bishop, who at that time was John Valiy, and 
appeared before Bishop Ireland Dec. 19, 1889, kissed 
his hand according to custom and presented my creden- 
tials, failing, however, to kneel before him, which as I 
learned later was my chief mistake. I remember, that 

24 



no sooner did he read that I was a 'Greek- Catholic,' his 
hands began to shake. It took him fifteen minutes to 
read to the end, after which he asked abruptly — we 
conversed in Latin: 

" 'Have you a wife?' 

" 'No.' 

" 'But you had one?' 

" 'Yes, I am a widower.' 

"At this he threw the paper on the table and 
loudly exclaimed: 'I have already written to Rome 
protesting against this kind of priests being sent to me !' 

" 'What kind of priests do you mean?' 

" 'Your kind.' 

" 'I am a Catholic priest of the Greek Rite. I am 
an Uniat, and was ordained by a regular Catholic 
Bishop.' 

" 'I do not consider that either you or this bishop of 
yours are Catholic; besides, I do not need any Greek 
Catholic priests here; a Polish priest in Minneapolis 
is quite sufficient ; the Greeks also can have him for their 
priest.' 

" 'But he belongs to the Latin Rite ; besides, our peo- 
ple do not understand him and so they will hardly go 
to him ; that was the reason they instituted a church of 
their own — ' 

" 'They had no permission from me and I shall grant 
you no jurisdiction to work here.' 

"Deeply hurt by the fanaticism of this representative 
of Papal Rome, I replied sharply: 

" 'In that case, I ask neither your jurisdiction nor 
your permission; I know the rights of my Church, I 
know the basis on which the Unia was established, and 
shall act accordingly.' 

"The Archbishop lost his temper. I lost mine just 

25 



as much. One word brought another, the thing had 
gone so far that our conversation is not worth putting 
on record. 

"Two days later, Jacob Pacholsky, the Polish priest, 
called on me. He spoke as if terror-stricken: 'For 
God's sake, your Reverence, what have you done? The 
Archbishop writes me I must have no intercourse with 
you. He does not accept you as a regularly ordained 
priest, and I am under strict orders from him to an- 
nounce this at the altar, forbidding your people to be 
ministered to by you or to take sacraments from you — ' 

"This was my reply: 'This is your concern. Do 
what you think is best. I shall not surrender one step 
and shall not be influenced by anything you and your 
Bishop can do.' 

"The Archbishop's demands were made public. He 
sent complaints to Rome, and my flock began to hear 
rumors which frightened them; the Archbishop, it was 
said, was going to send away their priest in ignominy, 
etc. In the meantime, I received letters from several 
of my fellow-priests of the Uniat Rite, who all wrote 
that there were a good many of us who had been treated 
by Latin BISHOPS and priests just as I had been. I 
informed the Uniat Bishop in Eperjes of all this, ask- 
ing his instructions, but he never answered me. Nat- 
urally so! as if an Uniat Bishop dared to contradict a 
Latin Archbishop. I wrote a second and third time, 
still without obtaining any reply. At last I received 
from the Canon Joseph Dzubay the following instruc- 
tion : 'For God's sake, be patient ; and if the Archbishop 
doubts that you are a faithful Catholic, let him know 
that you are willing to take your oath on it!' 

"After a while I received another letter from him, 
proposing that I should write a detailed account of the 
way the Archbishop received me and advising me to 

26 



write very carefully, as the letter was to be sent to Rome. 
This I did; but later on, the same Rev. Dzubay in- 
formed me that the truth was too harshly stated in my 
letter for it to be sent to Rome. However, some meas- 
ures had been taken and Rome was told that Latin 
Bishops must respect the Holy Unia. 

"In the meantime, the convention of Wilkes-Barre 
took place October 15-27, 1890. The protocols of this 
Convention, the remonstrances of two Bishops, and my 
own complaints were answered in a single letter from 
Rome, that is, from the Propaganda Fide: all of us 
(priests) were to be recalled from America! What was 
to be done? I called my parishioners together and ex- 
plained to them the sad position we were in, saying that 
under these conditions it certainly was best that I leave 
them. 

" e No, } said some of them, 'let us go to the Russian 
Bishop— why should we always bow before strangers/ 

' 'All right,' I said. 'But where does the Russian 
Bishop live? And what is his name?' 

"Having learned that the Russian Bishop resided 
in San Francisco, Cal. (at that time Bishop Vladimir), 
I made up my mind to do something which I carried 
in my heart a long time, for which my soul longed; that 
is, to become Orthodox. But how was it to be done? 
I had to be very cautious. The unfortunate Unia, the 
source of our decline and all our ills, had been part of 
our people too long. We had already borne that yoke 
on our shoulders for 250 years. I fervently prayed 
God to grant me the power to make all this clear to my 
unenlightened parishioners. 

"The Lord heard my prayer: I began teaching my 
people and, later on, February 11, 1891, I was commis- 
sioned to see the Russian Bishop at San Francisco con- 
cerning our matter. Bishop Vladimir not only accepted 



me, but came to us himself and received 361 of us into 
the Orthodox Church on the 25th of March, the very 
Sunday of the week of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. 
Our people, now informed and enlightened, rejected the 
false teaching of the Church of the Popes, and we re- 
lumed within the pale from which our forefathers were 
torn by means of deceit, flattery, hatred and violence. 
Glory be to our God for this mercy." 

Once the Russian people from Austria-Hungary, 
who had been in a Union with the Latin Church for 
centuries, learned that their original religion was not 
the Unia but Orthodoxy, they began to come back to 
the Church of their forefathers by the thousands all 
over North America. 

XI 

The III- Fated Union With Roman Catholicism. 

It is an historical fact that Russia was enlightened 
in Christianity (in 988) according to the creed, rules, 
usages, ritual and dogma of the Greek Eastern Ortho- 
dox Church. 

After the separation of the Western Church from 
the Eastern (1054), the Roman Popes pretended to 
get jurisdiction over the Russian Church. Its flourish- 
ing condition had already attracted notice, and Rome 
hesitated to commence the long series of attempts to 
bring it under her authority. 

In 1075, Russian Prince Isiaslaw, driven from 
power by civil wars, obtained promises of support from 
Pope Gregory VII, upon condition that the Prince 
submit his kingdom and the Orthodox Church of Russia 
to the authority of the Roman see. It happened, how- 
ever, that Isiaslaw regained his throne without foreign 
aid, and Gregory's scheme came to naught. 

28 



In 1204, the legate of Pope Innocent III offered 
to the Russian Prince Romanus of Galich, the protec- 
tion of the Apostolic sword, but the Prince, pointing to 
his own sword, proudly asked: "Has the Pope any 
sword like this?" 

Pope Innocent IV, seeing the distressed condition 
of the Eastern Orthodox Church (the Patriarch of 
Constantinople being in exile at Nice, and Russia hav- 
ing been ten years without a Metropolitan) , sent to Da- 
niel, Russian Prince of Galich (1245), the present of a 
regal crown, together with the proposition of a Union 
with the Roman Church, and a crusade against the 
Mongols. 

Prince Daniel accepted the crown, and the title of 
King of Galich, but put off the proposition for a Union 
of the Churches. 

The Papal legates also visited the court of Prince 
Alexander Nevsky (1253), and addressed him with 
flattering speeches, but Alexander refused decidedly 
either to receive their letters or listen to their solicita- 
tion. 

When John Paleologus, King of the Greek Empire, 
was menaced by the Turks under Amurat II, turned 
to Europe for succor, Pope Eugenius IV, eagerly 
seized the opportunity thus presented of reconciling 
and uniting the Church of the East and the West, in 
the hope that the glory of this achievement, by re-es- 
tablishing the supremacy of the Roman Popes over 
the whole Church, would redound to his advantage and 
silence all opposition to his claim to be its legitimate 
head. 

He relied upon the support of Isidore, an adroit, 
ambitious schemer, Greek by nationality, personal 
friend of the Pope, whose influence is supposed to have 
assisted in his elevation to the exalted position of Metro- 

29 



politan of the Russian Church (at that time only Greek 
Bishops were appointed to rule the Russian Orthodox 
Church ) . 

Pope Eugenius IV, although he himself was engaged 
in a contest with the Synods of Constance and Basil, 
respecting the Papal authority, nevertheless proposed 
to the Greek Emperor, John Paleologus, to call a coun- 
cil in Italy for the reunion of the Churches promising, 
if it were agreed to, to save Constantinople from the 
Turks. King John, together with the Greek Patriarch, 
Joseph, and the venerable body of clergy, sailed for 
Venice, but as Russia already composed the larger half 
of the Eastern Church, Isidore, the new Metropolitan, 
was also summoned to the council. 

No more than four months had elapsed since his ar- 
rival in Russia from Greece when he began to seek per- 
mission of the Great Russian Prince Basil to go to the 
council, representing to him that all the sovereigns and 
primates of both Eastern and Western Churches were 
assembled to confer about the faith, and that it was not 
meet that Russia alone should have no representative 
there. 

The Prince gave a reluctant consent to the depar- 
ture of Metropolitan Isidore, beseeching him to stand 
firm in defense of the doctrines of Orthodoxy. 

"Our fathers," said he, "and our ancestors would 
never listen to the reunion of the Greek and Latin re- 
ligions, nor have I any such intention. Yet you may 
go, if such be your desire; I will not oppose your de- 
parture, but remember the purity of our faith and 
come back with it unsullied." (Karamzin, "History of 
Russia," Vol. V, p. 355). 

The Russian Metropolitan Platon, in his Church 
History, remarks that "the pope, the most artful of 
men, seeing that Russia was the most powerful coun- 

30 



try which professed the Greek faith, persuaded Isidore, 
whose sentiments he knew, to get himself consecrated 
and sent as Metropolitan to Moscow, that he might 
assist at the council about to be held at Florence in 
subjecting both the Greek and Russian Churches to 
his Holiness' slippers, and that Isidore consequently 
got himself to be consecrated at Constantinople with 
the express intention of betraying the interests of the 
Church he had engaged to govern." The Council of 
Florence first met at Ferrara in 1438; adjourned to 
Florence and disbanded in 1439. 

Its sessions were violent and stormy, its debates 
acrimonious and endless. Accord between the opposing 
parties which composed it was hopeless, but the Greek 
Emperor John and the Pope were determined not to 
lose the fruit of their labors and to secure, by any pos- 
sible means, at least the semblance of a union of 
churches. The eloquent Mark, Metropolitan of Ephe- 
sus, thundered against the ambition of the Roman Pope 
and his new doctrines, but Vessarion, Metropolitan of 
Nice, and Isidore of Russia, inclined strongly to the 
interests of Rome. 

At length Pope Eugenius obtained the upper hand, 
and declared beforehand the union of the churches on 
conditions favorable to Rome. 

Mark of Ephesus was the only one who did not 
subscribe (Patriarch Joseph died in Florence before 
the end of the sessions) to the acts of the council; he 
devoted himself to become afterwards, in the East, the 
champion of Orthodoxy; for the other ecumenical 
Patriarchs rejected the Union of Florence and assem- 
bled in Constantinople, and condemned all its conven- 
tions and acts. The most important part of the acts 
of the council of Florence consisted of the following: 

That the Pope of Rome is the Vicar of Jesus 

31 



Christ, the head of the Church on earth, and the Patri- 
arch of Constantinople holds the second place after 
him." * * * The emperor John returned home with 
presents, but without obtaining any support for his 
falling Empire. "The Greek Emperor," remarks the 
Russian Metropolitan Platon in his History, "was in 
the wrong to apply for assistance to the Pope, who had 
always been the sworn enemy of his religion ; and would 
only have helped him if it could have promoted his own 
selfish ends; that he ought rather to have reformed his 
government and life, and turned together with his peo- 
ple to God, whose mercy would have been of more 
service to him than the pope." 

Metropolitan Isidore received the title of "Cardinal 
Legate of the Apostolic See in Russia." He returned 
in triumph through Kieff to Moscow, bearing friendly 
letters from Pope Eugenius to the Great Prince of 
Russia. 

At the first Divine liturgy in the Cathedral of the 
Assumption (in Moscow), Isidore ordered the Arch- 
deacon to proclaim the acts of the councils of Florence, 
but was indignantly rebuked by Prince Basil, who pub- 
licly called him a traitor to the cause of Orthodoxy and 
a false pastor. 

Prince Basil summoned the Bishops and boyars to 
meet and pass their judgment on the new doctrine. Not 
one of them would consent to acknowledge the Pope 
as the Vicar of Christ, and all of them, with one accord, 
rejected the Western doctrines. 

Isidore was deposed and sentenced to confinement 
in the Chudof Monastery (1441) ; he escaped, however, 
from his prison and fled to Rome, where, by favor of 
the Pope, he was honorably received. 

In 1467, Pope Paul III, induced Prince Ivan III 
to acknowledge the Union decreed by the council of 

32 



Florence, but his hopes met with disappointment. In 
1519, Pope Leo X, offered Prince Vasily IV to raise 
the See of Moscow to a Patriarchate, preserving all 
the "allowable" practices of the Eastern Church, but 
Vasily, mindful of the "Tedeums" celebrated by Leo 
for the great victory of the Lithuanians over the "he- 
retic" Russians at Orsha, declined his advances and re- 
fused others of a similar nature from Pope Clement VII. 

In 1581, Pope Gregory XIII, through the Jesuit 
Anthony Possevin, urged Czar Ivan IV to recognize 
the fusion of the Churches promulgated by the Council 
of Florence, to enter into an alliance with other Euro- 
pean powers, and thus array the whole Christian world 
in a crusade against the Turks, but his arguments fell 
on unwilling ears. 

Czar Ivan ridiculed the Orthodoxy of Roman Chris- 
tians whose Pope pretended to sit on a throne above 
kings and give them his toe to kiss. "We earthly sov- 
ereigns," said he, "alone wear crowns. The heir of the 
Apostles should be meek and lowly in spirit. We rev- 
erence our Metropolitan, and crave his blessing, but 
he walks humbly on earth, and seeks not, in pride, to 
raise himself above princes. There is but one Holy 
Father, and He is in heaven; who calleth himself the 
companion of Jesus Christ, but is carried on men's 
shoulders, as if borne upon a cloud by angels, is no 
true shepherd, but a wolf in sheep's clothing." (Ka- 
ramzin "History of Russia," Vol. IX, p. 460). Pos- 
sevin left Russia without having accomplished his ob- 
ject. 

It is easy to see that all the efforts of the Latins to 
introduce Romanism or the union of churches into Rus- 
sia could not but be wrecked against such unconquer- 
able hostility on the part of the Russians. 

Well aware that Orthodox Russia could not be 

33 



converted directly to Romanism, the Popes took hold 
of the Unia and began to clear the way for it in the 
Western parts of present Poland, in Austrian Galicia 
and Hungary. 

The chief promoters of the Unia at that time were 
Cyrill Terletzky, Bishop of Loutsk, who was severely 
reproved by the Patriarch of Constantinople for his 
vicious life, and Hypatius Potsey, Bishop of Vladimir, 
previously a Roman priest of Brest, a faithful ally of 
Cyrill. Like Isidore before then, they both entertained 
the idea of adhering to the Roman Church; thereby 
hoping to obtain the powerful protection of the Polish 
King Sigismund III (1590), a blind zealot of Rome. 

Potsey and Terletzky fraudulently obtained the 
signatures of Gedeon Balaban, Bishop of Lwow, and 
Michael Copistensky, Bishop of Peremyshl, to a clean 
sheet of paper, upon which they pretended they were 
going to write a petition to the Polish King for new 
privileges to the Orthodox Church; and then, instead 
of this, they wrote, as in the name of a Synod, a re- 
quest to him and the Pope for a religious union of the 
Orthodox Church with the Roman, on the terms of the 
council of Florence, but with conservation of all the 
discipline and ceremonies of the Eastern Church. 

Aided by King Sigizmund III, Terletsky and 
Potsey went to Rome as representatives of the whole 
Russian Orthodox Church, and, before Pope Clement 
VIII, Dec. 23, 1595, testified their submission and 
allegiance to the Roman Catholic Church. 

All the Clergy of Western Russia were brought 
into agitation by this act, and having assembled in 1596 
at Brest, were divided in their sentiments. Some re- 
mained unshaken in their Orthodoxy; others, with the 
two instigators, inclined to Rome. 

Accepted by only a few Bishops, the Unia was op- 

34 



posed unanimously by the laity. In view of this, it was 
intended to exert pressure on them by violent measures. 
Riots, violences and bloodshed marked the course of 
the Unia for many years ; churches, convents and houses 
of worship were destroyed and sealed up, and these acts 
were frequently accompanied by shameful robberies, 
cruelty and even the murder of Russian Orthodox peo- 
ple. Parish priests and teachers, on account of their 
attachment to their Orthodox faith, were persecuted 
by the Roman clergy, and the adherents of the Unia 
(Krasinsky, "History of Poland," p. 139, V. 2, 1840, 
London). 

The Uniat Archbishop Josaphat Kuntzevich, of 
Polotzk, a prelate of irreproachable life, but blindly de- 
voted to the interests of Rome, persecuted the Orthodox 
Russian people with particular severity. 

Leon Sapega, chancellor of Lithuania, strongly 
represented to Kuntzevich the danger of his proceed- 
ings, which he described to him as not only impolitic, 
but also as un-Christian. On the 12th of March, 1622, 
Sapega wrote to him : "By the abuse of your authority, 
and by your actions, which originate rather in vanity 
and personal hatred than in charity towards your 
neighbors, and are contrary to the laws of our country, 
you have kindled those dangerous sparks which may 
produce an all-consuming fire. Obedience to the laws 
of the country is more necessary than the union with 
Rome. * * * A general Union can be promoted by 
charity only, and not by force. * * * You inform me 
that your life is in danger, but I think that it is your 
own fault. You say that you must seek defense against 
the agitators; Christ being persecuted, did not seek 
for it, but prayed for his persecutors ; so ought you like- 
wise to act, instead of scattering offensive writings, or 
uttering menaces, of which the Apostles have left no 
example. Your sanctity assumes that you are per- 

35 



mitted to despoil schismatics and to cut off their heads ; 
the gospel teaches the contrary. 

"This union has created great mischief; you offer 
violence to conscience, and you shut churches (Ortho- 
dox) so that the Christians perish like infidels, without 
worship or sacraments. Whom have you converted (to 
the Unia) by your severities? You have alienated the 
hitherto loyal Cossacks; you have converted sheep into 
goats ; you have drawn danger on the country, and per- 
haps even destruction on the Catholics. The Unia has 
not produced joy, but only dicord, quarrels and dis- 
turbance. It would have been much better if it had 
never taken place. 

"Now, I inform you that by the King's command, 
the churches (Orthodox) must be opened and restored 
to the Greeks that they may perform divine service. We 
do not prohibit Jews and Mohammedans from having 
their places of worship, and yet you are shutting up 
Christian temples." (Vishnevsky, "History of Polish 
Literature," V. 8, p. 498-503.) 

Notwthstanding this true Christian letter of Chan- 
cellor Sapega, Archbishop Kuntzevich pursued his 
career of oppression until the inhabitants of Vitebsk 
rose and murdered him, on the 12th of July, 1628, by 
dragging his body to the banks of the river Dwina, and 
throwing his body, with a stone tied to his neck, into 
the river. 

For his bravery (in murdering the Orthodox Chris- 
tians) in propagating the Unia, the Roman Church 
canonized him (1643) as a saint of the Uniat Church. 

The same Unia was enforced among the Russian 
Orthodox- people in present Austro-Hungary — in Hun- 
gary, in 1649, in the City of Ungvar; in Galicia: in the 
Diocese of Peremyshl, 1691; in the Diocese of Lwow, 

36 



1700. After the partition of Poland (in 1772, 1793, 
1795), the Russian Uniates of the present western 
Russia, being at liberty to follow the dictates of their 
own consciences, threw off the Roman allegiance and 
returned to Orthodoxy— the faith of their forefathers: 

(a) at the end of Catherine II reign— 3,000,000 souls 

(b) In 1329— 1,600,000 souls 

(c) In 1875— 50,000 souls 
Pope Gregory XVI (1846) issued, against the re- 
union, an ineffectual allocution; but the public opinion 
of Europe saw, in the return of Uniates, a case of his- 
torical justice. 

While four and one-half millions of Russian Uni- 
ates (in western Russia) returned to the faith of their 
forefathers, the four millions of Russian Uniates in 
Austrian Galicia and Hungary, at present falsely 
named as "Ruthenians," still remain in religious sub- 
mission to Rome. In America, during the past twenty- 
five years, through the peaceful efforts of the Russian 
Orthodox Mission, over 50,000 Austrian Uniates re- 
turned to the Orthodox faith. The main reason why 
the greater portion of Austrian-Russians still adhere 
to the Unia is because their clergy, partly on account of 
their persecution by the Austrian civil authorities, part- 
ly on acount of their hypocrisy, make them "to believe 
they are (Orthodox in faith) what they are not, when 
in fact they are what they do not believe they are." 

"As the test of the Roman Church is its doctrines 
or creed and not rituals and ceremonies, the Uniates 
are Roman Catholics and not Greek Catholics; they are 
'Roman Catholics of the Ruthenian rites.' It is this 
lack of understanding and other causes such as the in- 
troduction of their home politics (Austrian Ukranizm, 
Mazepinizm) into America, that has caused so much 
trouble among them in the past five or six years. It 

37 



was chiefly because of this misnomer 'Greek Catholic' 
that whenever a Roman Catholic Bishop of the Latin 
rite, in America, sought jurisdiction over them they 
protested and rebelled. 

"The laity do not seem to understand the ecclesias- 
tical standing of their Church, its relation to Rome; 
they do not understand they are united, annexed, ad- 
joined and incorporated into the Roman Church/' (Ru- 
thenians, A. E. Oberlander, p. 23, Gettysburg.) 

In reality they are not "Greek" by faith, but Roman, 
with Latinized Greek rites and ceremonies. The Right 
Rev. Phelan, late Roman Catholic Bishop of Pitts- 
burgh, in his pastoral letter to the clergy and laity (see 
"Pittsburgh Post," November 12, 1904), made the fol- 
lowing statement about the Uniates: "Among Cath- 
olics who do not use the Latin rite, the Catholics who 
use the Greek or Ruthenian rite are the most numerous 
in our diocese. It is a misuse of words and terms to say 
that some of the clergy and laity of the diocese are 
Roman Catholics and some Greek Catholics. All the 
faithful who are in the unity of the visible Church of 
Christ, and in the obedience to his Vicar, the Bishop of 
Rome, successor of St. Peter, are Roman Catholics. 
Some are Catholics of the Latin rite, some are Catholics 
of the Greek (Ruthenian) rite — but all are Roman 
Catholics." 

It is evident that the Unia is a means of keeping 
under spiritual subjection to the Roman Church people 
who, having received from the East the imperishable 
doctrines and primitive rites of the Christian faith, and 
with them the means of profiting by an intelligible 
church service in their tongue, did not choose, for the 
sake of any worldly advantages, to part with those holy 
pledges of the salvation of their souls. 

38 



XII 

Facts About The Money Question. 

The Austro-German agitators declare in "The 
Great Conspiracy" that, for the purpose of winning the 
Austro-Russian Uniates of America over to the Ortho- 
dox faith, "Russian money is poured out like water." 

It is true that the Russian Orthodox Mission here 
(as the missions of other denominations throughout the 
world) receives a yearly subsidy of seventy thousand 
dollars (for traveling expenses, maintenance of her 
Consistory, Bishop's headquarters. Seminary, Indian, 
Eskimo and other poor parishes). 

This sum of money is sent yearly from the Russian 
Missionary Society of Moscow and from the special 
funds of the Holy Synod. 

The Russian Mission in America has 215 churches 
and 87 chapels and mission stations, of which over 200 
are self-supporting. If we will consider the great moral 
and spiritual work of the Russian Church among the 
American Russians and compare it with the little sum 
of money received by her for this purpose, we would 
be amazed, inasmuch as the whole sum given is but a 
drop in the bucket in comparison to her needs and 
growth in North America. 



XIII 

Religious Persecution or The Austro-Russian 
Uniates by Their Teutonic Government. 

Regarding the statement of "The Great Conspir- 
acy" that "all the true adherents of the Greek Catholic 
Ruthenian Church in Russia must pay with bitterest 
persecution and also with life itself for their loyalty," 

39 



I must say that the Russian history does not know of 
such fictitious persecutions of Greek Catholic Ruthe- 
nians. 

In conclusion, as the history of the Russian people 
is so little known, I have tried to show that the Russian 
Orthodox Church in North America is in no way to 
blame for practises of which it is accused in "The Great 
Conspiracy" by the Austro-Germans. In reality the 
truly Christian religion as well as the nobility of the 
hearts of the Russian people would prevent them from 
even thinking of such a transgression (as declared by 
the Austro-Germans) against the United States which 
enables them to fulfill freely the sacred commandment : 
"Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one 
convert him, let him know that he which converteth the 
sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from 
death, and shall hide a multitude of sin." (James, v, 
19-20.) 

How the Austro-Germans can dare to accuse the 
Russian Government for a fictitious persecution of 
Ruthenian Greek Catholics, not seeing at the same time 
the real persecution of Russians in Austria, I can't 
imagine! 

Take, for instance, the "London Times" for April 
and May, 1912, and you will be surprised to learn that 
the tolerant ( ?) Austrian constitution which provides for 
complete freedom of conscience for all her subjects, is 
trodden under foot when it concerns the Russian Uniates 
of Austria. 

"Russian schools," declares the "Times," "however 
private, are not allowed ; Russian books are confiscated, 
and boys found reading a Russian author are expelled 
from the gymnasiums. At the elections, whether Par- 
liamentary or provincial, Russian voters are either pre- 
vented by troops from entering the polling booths, or 

40 



the result of the election is falsified. In matters reli- 
gious their state is even worse. 

"An ex-officer of cavalry, a certain Count Sheptitski, 
has been appointed Metropolitan for the Russian Uni- 
ates of Galicia, and is doing all he can (in Austria him- 
self, and in the United States is striving through his as- 
sistant, Ruthenian Bishop Soter Ortinsky, of Philadel- 
phia) to Polonize and Latinize his Russian flock, of 
which he has proved himself to be not the shepherd, but 
the wolf. 

"The 'Uniate' priests who remain faithful to the an- 
cient Slavonic liturgy so loved by the people, are being 
harshly persecuted (at the beginning of the European 
war, hundreds of such priests were not only thrown into 
prison, but even were shot and hanged ike the worst 
criminals) ; new customs and ceremonies, abhorred by 
the people, are being introduced, and celibacy is being 
forced on the clergy." 

The Russian Uniates of Austria, learning from Or- 
thodox missionaries that, while they are Uniates, they 
are not Orthodox, started a strong religious movement 
in favor of Orthodoxy. 

"Village after village," as the "London Times" ad- 
mitted, "has declared itself to a man no longer 'Uniat' 
but Orthodox. The movement began in 19(D3, when 
the large villages of Zaluchie and Grab in Galicia joined 
the Orthodox Church, and though men have been im- 
prisoned and Austrian soldiers quartered upon the vil- 
lagers, the peasants have remained firm. In Hungary, 
a similar movement to that in Galicia broke out even 
earlier, more than ten years ago, because the Govern- 
ment began to substitute Hungarian for the Slavonic 
language of the church service." 

A prominent Englishman, W. J. Birkbeck, M. A. 
F. S. A., went to Austrian Galicia in 1912 to investigate 
the truthfulness of the Austrian persecutions. 

41 



On his return from Austria he openly wrote in his 
pamphlet, entitled, "Religious Persecution in Galicia": 

"I saw and talked with some forty peasants of the 
village of Grab. The cause of all the trouble there has 
been the priest, Kiselevsky, who has been forced upon 
them, and who is a violent Latinizer, and bitter Ukraino- 
phil politician. I heard their complaints against his 
conduct, in and out of Church, which were both varied 
and numerous. I cannot now go into them all. The 
two last straws seem to have been, firstly, that in 1910 
lie had arbitrarily cut the word "Orthodox" out of the 
prayer at the Great Entrance in the Liturgy: 'May 
the Lord God remember all of you Orthodox Christians 
in his Kingdom/ although it is printed in the service 
books which by the written law of his Church he is bound 
to use at the altar; and, secondly, that he had refused 
to register the people in the parish list as Russians. 'We 
were always Russians and Orthodox, and so were our 
fathers and forefathers before us; we know now that 
Uhrainism is a bridge to make Poles of us, and that the 
Unia is a trap to turn us to Papists. We have left the 
Unia forever, and they may fine us and rob us of our 
cattle, or even hang us and cut us up, but we will never 
go back to it, — thus spake the people. 

"THEY had invited an Orthodox priest, Sando- 
vich, a native of the village of Zdynia, 12 werst away, 
to come and minister to them, giving him a house and 
some land, and themselves providing for his mainte- 
nance. The local authorities, in spite of the Austrian 
Constitution providing for perfect religious liberty, had 
refused them permission to build a Church. The serv- 
ices, held in a private room, had been constantly inter- 
fered with by the gendarmes, who, after having brought 
Father Sandovich into Court, and having got him fined 
on various occasions, had on Easter Day last, surround- 

42 



ed the house while he was celebrating the Holy Commun- 
ion and arrested him immediately afterwards, and he 
was thrown into prison at Lemberg and after being kept 
ihere for over a year, was shot two months ago (in view 
of his wife) by the prison wall. 

"The peasants of that village — men, women and 
children — have been summoned before the tribunal of 
Jaslo, thirty miles distant across the hills, deep in snow. 
Three times they have been brought on foot to Jaslo 
and three times has the case been postponed. 'Come 
back to the Uniat Church,' say the police, 'and we will 
trouble you no more; when your children begin to die 
of the frost and fatigue you will be sure to yield.' But 
these Russian mountaineers will not yield. 'You can 
take our money and our cattle, and our goods, perse- 
cute and imprison us, but we will starve to death first 
than go back to the Uniat Church." 

From the above it is evident that the noble work of 
the Russian Orthodox Church of America, with regard 
to the Unia, is a clear work and historically correct, and 
such it shall remain forever, whatever the accusations of 
its enemies and the coloring they are trying to put on 
the cause of the return of the Russian Uniates of Aus- 
tria-Hungary to the Orthodox Church. 

The fate of nations can show no truth superior to 
the truth of history. Orthodoxy has watched the true 
interests of the Slavic nations from the beginning of cen- 
turies ; for this reason the Unia, always was a sore sub- 
ject with it, as the means of turning Slavs astray into 
Roman Catholicism, and possibly making them take 
sides against the Slavs with the Austro-Germans (we 
see this on all Austrian Ukrainophils), who are the bit- 
terest enemies of the Slavs. 

"Refined diplomacy is used by the Uniat leaders 
against the Orthodox Church, both in Austria and in 

43 



America. The main part of this diplomacy is enclosed 
in forcing a language (Ukrainian) upon the Russian 
population of Austria which the Polish majority in the 
local Galician Parliament has made official, but which 
is not actually the language of any part of Galicia, and 
which is actually unintelligible. This 'language' is an 
amalgam of three Little Russian dialects spoken in 
Galicia, as well as of other dialects spoken in Little Rus- 
sia, with a liberal admixture of Polish words and expres- 
sions. It is, in fact, an artificial jargon, a sort of local 
Esperanto; and the main object both of its structure 
and of its orthography , is to construct something which 
shall be as different as possible from ordinary literary 
Russian, in order that, by forcing this upon the children 
in the schools and in their religious instruction, the au- 
thorities may gradually render Russian literature in- 
accessible to them, and then, by means of books of devo- 
tion containing Latin prayers translated into the new 
language, sever them from the Orthodox traditions 
hitherto preserved in their church. The process involves 
the further result that it likewise cuts them off from 
being able to read or understand the old Slavonic in 
which (as in Russia) their services are read. This pol- 
icy of the Poles, of course, suits the Jesuits very well, 
as, if it ever succeeded, and the people could no longer 
understand what was being read in Church, it would 
afford an excellent excuse for the substitution of the 
Latin for the Slavonic language."- — (Religious Persecu- 
tion in Galicia, by W. J. Birkbeck, London, 1912.) 



LIBRARY OF CONGRF«?c 

■■■■■111 

015 900 768 6 • 



